


Not Gone

by she_is_rysn



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Family Dynamics, Hearthstone - Freeform, M/M, Modern AU, beverages are apparently very important to me?, grief is hard, in-law anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-24 23:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/she_is_rysn/pseuds/she_is_rysn
Summary: A few months after their wedding, Kaladin and Adolin make a weekend trip to Hearthstone.
Relationships: Kaladin/Adolin Kholin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	1. Part I - Saturday | Is There Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Typsy123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Typsy123/gifts).

> Gift for Typsy123 for the cosmere gift exchange (Kadolin soulmate AU). This was so fun!

“Is there coffee?” Adolin called, face half buried in pillows.

“I make you coffee every day,” Kaladin responded from the kitchen. He held the steaming cup to his lips, wishing it was slightly cooler. 

“I know that. But,” Adolin added, flopping onto his back, fingers dangling off either side of the bed, “sometimes it’s not done yet or you didn’t start it yet. So that’s why I’m asking if there _ is _coffee.”

Kaladin placed down his mug. It was half of a pair they’d gotten from Rock’s children, with the Bridge Four and Kholin glyphs stamped on either side. Opening the fridge, he located a spoiled quart of milk and began pouring it down the sink. 

“You know,” he called over his shoulder, “there storming _ was _ coffee, but my hand slipped and now it’s just all going down the drain?” Kaladin breathed through his mouth as the aroma of bad milk hit his nose. He heard the rustling of blankets in the other room.

“My coffee!”

“Yeah, it just keeps going down the drain, Lin! I’m so sorr—“

“You wouldn’t!”

A handful of footsteps slapped across the floor before Adolin appeared, hanging off the doorway with one arm. His eyes darted to the still-full coffee pot, then narrowed at Kaladin. 

“That was mean.”

Kaladin took a second to rinse the empty jug before tossing it in the recycling bin. 

“I make you coffee every day,” Kaladin repeated. He pulled the matching mug off a hook, filled it, and handed it to Adolin.

“Thank you,” Adolin overenunciated, trying valiantly to retain his accusatory glare.

Kaladin gently nudged aside the hand holding the mug, slipping both arms around his husband’s - _ husband’s! _\- waist. The action had an ease that was almost unbelievable, and it was rewarded with his favorite smile of all time. 

“Good morning,” Adolin feigned surprise at the sudden embrace, depositing his cup on the counter beside them. Long arms wrapped around Kaladin’s shoulders in a squeeze.

“Good morning,” Kaladin sighed, face half buried in Adolin’s neck. 

“Ready to go hang out with my family?”


	2. Part I - Saturday | Dodo

A high pitched squeal rang out as Oroden came stumbling out of the house, little legs pumping in his best approximation of a sprint.

“Dodo!!!” The exclamation was followed by more squeals and giggles as Adolin ran to the toddler with a roar, scooping him off the ground and lifting him over his head. 

Kaladin pulled a suitcase from the trunk and met his parents on the front steps. They greeted him with hugs, and then all watched as Adolin zoomed Oroden in circles.

“Honestly I don’t think he even saw me,” Kaladin remarked, completely understanding the feeling of only having eyes for Adolin.

“He’s been asking us when you were coming the whole week,” smiled Hesina, “it made us all impatient.” She draped an arm around her son’s shoulders, punctuating the motion with an affectionate squeeze. His mother let out a small involuntary gasp as Adolin threw Oroden several feet into the air, not exhaling again until he was caught. Kaladin held back a chuckle.

Adolin pretended to lose his balance, sending the two of them crashing to the ground with Oroden wrapped in the protective bubble of his arms. All those years training as a duelist had shaped Adolin into a pretty excellent physical comedian, Kaladin observed. He also observed the way his husband’s t-shirt got caught around Oroden’s tiny foot, showing a few inches of the objectively best body that currently existed on Roshar.

“How’s married life?” Lirin remarked, noticing the way Kaladin gazed at the man who was pretending to be a chull on his lawn. 

“It’s great,” Kaladin replied truthfully. “Really great.”

“Your dad can’t stop talking about the wedding,” Hesina confided quietly.

“I heard that,” Lirin interjected. “It  _ was _ really something, though. Never saw so much food in my whole life. Is that how they do things all the time?”

Kaladin fought the impulse to roll his eyes. Marrying a lighteyes had brought a certain amount of culture shock to his family, and not a little bit of suspicion. Of course, Kaladin had gone through a similar, maybe harsher process in getting acquainted with the Kholins, so he understood where his parents were coming from. But he was still embarrassed when they criticized his in-laws.

It  _ had _ been a lavish wedding, though. Adolin was utterly in his element, designing every napkin and pocket square (Kaladin had actually gotten in trouble for not realizing those were two different things. They were both squares! How was he supposed to know?), and of course both of their suits. Shallan contributed her fair share too, creating a gorgeous monogram that adorned everything from the invitations to the aforementioned pocket squares. She and Adolin spent hours going over fabric samples, tasting menus, Vorin readings, the whole thing. Kaladin was relieved to have a friend so eager to jump into the wedding planning role, and it only bothered him a _ little _ that people tended to assume she was the one getting married to Adolin. It certainly didn’t bother him enough to offer to choose shalebark arrangements in her stead. 

“Ignore him, Kaladin,” his mother instructed him. “He went back to the buffet three times, and I never saw you dance like that in my whole life, Lirin,” Hesina scolded her husband. “You can’t complain about something you enjoyed so much, dear.”

“Yes I can,” his father deadpanned. “That makes it more enjoyable. You got that from me, by the way,” Lirin informed Kaladin.

The conversation was interrupted by shrieks from Oroden, who was being tickled into submission by his new pet chull.

“We’re potty training! He doesn’t have a diaper on,” Hesina called out. “Fair warning.”

Adolin abruptly cancelled the ticklefest, mouthing “thank you” at his mother-in-law. He rained high fives and compliments down on the small boy and then made a big show of whispering something in his ear.

Oroden dashed back to his mother, Adolin following a few steps behind. The look of exhilaration on his face after horsing around with the boy was almost too adorable to handle. Kaladin couldn’t help but stare as Adolin rearranged his shirt and hair, smiling after the little one.

His little brother practically skidded to a stop at Hesina’s feet, his breath catching in his small chest. 

“Mama,” Oroden panted, “snack time?”

Hesina laughed, reaching down to collect the little boy. “What a good idea! Who wants a snack?”

Adolin raised his hand.

“Come on then, I think we may have something in the kitchen.” Hesina smiled at Adolin, then Kaladin, before going back into the house. 

Lirin stuck out his hand to Adolin, who quickly corrected the impulse to hug this father-in-law. 

“I appreciate you having me this weekend, sir,” Adolin said, clasping Lirin’s hand in his own. Kaladin knew Adolin couldn’t help the military formality that crept into his voice every time he addressed Lirin. It was just how he talked to dads. But Kaladin knew his own father was uncomfortable with it, for obvious reasons.

“Call me Lirin, please,” Kaladin saw the insistent look in his father’s eyes, trying to make clear that this was his actual preference and not just politeness. 

“Okay,” Adolin obliged, unable to actually oblige.

Abandoning the effort, Lirin smiled and held the door open, beckoning Adolin and Kaladin inside. 

“Come on, let’s get you settled.”


	3. Part I - Saturday | The Home That's Here

Adolin exclaimed with pleasure at the number of empty hangers that waited in the closet, busying himself with carefully hanging up the contents of their suitcase. Before marrying Adolin, if you had told Kaladin that a bag of that size was required for a two day trip, he would have informed you that this was incorrect. 

Now, he knew better.

They were given Oroden’s room, which was once the room Kaladin and Tien had shared. The space was unrecognizable to him, intentionally, it seemed. A bag containing a deflated air mattress sat on Oroden’s tiny “big boy bed.” Kaladin busied his hands with the drawstring of the bag as Adolin carefully smoothed each piece of clothing before sliding it beside its neighbors in the closet.

Kaladin could still see his old bedroom in every detail - the row of rocks that once crowded the windowsill, the two narrow beds that sat on either corner of the room. The closet was new somehow - had his parents remodeled? Or maybe he didn’t remember quite as well as he thought.

“Chip for your thoughts?” 

Kaladin looked up as Adolin finished tucking a t-shirt into the closet (who even put t-shirts on a hanger?), swooping down to take up residence on the low bed, head resting in Kaladin’s lap.

“Still weird coming back? Ow, wait, that’s storming uncomfortable,” Adolin quickly abandoned the pose, taking a seat at Kaladin’s side and leaning into his shoulder. 

“Sorry. Still weird?”

“Yeah, it’s still weird,” Kaladin responded. He listened for the sound of the bed buckling under their weight, but thankfully it seemed to hold. “I wish I could see him here more, you know? Every memory of Tien is wrapped up in my memories of home, but the home I remember isn’t the home that’s here anymore. It’s like I have to protect that memory forever, otherwise--”

“DODO!” a tiny voice bellowed from down the hall. “I’M DOOOONE”

“Ignore that!” Hesina called. She poked her head in the door, briefly, “He wants you -- never mind. You’re fine in there.”

Adolin and Kaladin exchanged a look which confirmed that neither of them knew what that was about.

Kaladin sighed, letting Adolin take his weight as he nestled his head in the crook of Adolin’s neck. 

“I wish you could’ve met him, Lin. You would have loved each other.”

“I  _ do _ love him,” Adolin tipped his head to rest on top of Kaladin’s. “I wish I could’ve met him, too.”

They sat quietly for a moment, until the racket of Oroden trying to come into his room could be heard outside their door, tiny hands, feet and knees scrabbling to reach the just-out-of-reach doorknob. 

Adolin placed a tender kiss on the top of Kaladin’s head.

“WHO’S THERE?!?!” Adolin roared, running to meet his little playmate. Shrieks sounded from the other side of the door.


	4. Part I - Saturday | Frustration or Regret

Kaladin sat with his father on the front steps, enjoying a modest pour from the bottle of violet they’d brought along. His mother was getting Oroden to bed, and Adolin was taking care of the dinner dishes, a new pastime that he said he found calming. 

Adolin had agonized over what wine to bring. He didn’t want to appear extravagant, but he also wanted to bring something _ nice _. It was endearing the way Adolin worked so hard to impress Kaladin’s father, especially because he was so effortlessly charming the rest of the time. That his father had opened the bottle on their first night visiting was meant to indicate that he appreciated the gift. Kaladin made a note to point that out to Adolin later. 

Kaladin and his father sat in silence for a time. It was a breezy evening, slightly too cool to be out without a jacket, but the effort of retrieving one seemed like just a little too much in the moment. Kaladin took a sip of his drink. 

“Laral had a baby, did you hear?” 

Kaladin hadn’t heard. 

“Little girl,” Lirin continued, “rough delivery. They had me on standby, in case it turned out—“

“How’s she doing now?” Kaladin interrupted. He wasn’t ready or interested to hear the details of Laral’s childbirth. “How, how are _ they _ doing.”

A baby. 

“Nobody’s called me over, so they must be fine,” Lirin reasoned. “Maybe your mother knows.”

“What do I know?” Hesina closed the door quietly behind herself, reaching for Lirin’s glass of violet as she settled behind them on the steps. 

“Laral’s baby,” Lirin responded, believing this to be sufficient context. 

“Oh yes! Little...storms, what’s her name. She must be 3, 4 months old now?” Hesina let out a soft chuckle. “You know Laral, though, she was up and moving far too soon. Furious she couldn’t ride a horse, though why you would want to after pushing out a--”

“Mom!” 

“What? That’s how you got here, Kal.” Hesina’s innocent mask gave way to a teasing smile.

Kaladin’s face felt hot. Of all the gruesome things he’d seen in his life, childbirth was never one of them. Thinking of Laral, of all the things that had necessarily happened in order for her to be birthing a _ child _, it was suddenly too much to process. Storms, she was already pregnant by the time Kaladin was married! It made him feel a little lightheaded.

“Where’s Adolin?” Kaladin changed the subject, eliciting another quiet laugh from his mother.

“He’s watching Oroden sleep on the monitor,” she whispered confidentially. “I invited him out, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.” 

Hesina looked meaningfully at her son. “You two ever talk about --” 

“Mom.” Kaladin returned the look in a please-let’s-not-talk-about-this way.

“OK,” his mother acquiesced. “I know, I know you just got married. But,” she tipped her head back in the direction of the kitchen, “he’ll be a wonderful father, Kal. And so will you.” 

Hesina held out her husband’s glass of wine. Kaladin clinked his glass with it, and they drank. As the violet wine warmed his throat, Kaladin wondered whether what his mother said was true. About him, at least.

“Can you please get your own glass?” Lirin complained. “That was very rude of you to toast without me.”

Hesina gave a performative eye roll as she handed back his glass and went inside. 

“Thank you,” Lirin called primly to her retreating form. Though he didn’t particularly want to, Kaladin noticed the deepened lines around his father’s mouth and eyes. 

“There’s something nice about doing it all again,” Lirin mused, swirling his glass slowly. “I’m more tired this time, but...it’s still nice. Not that--” He backtracked abruptly, frustration or regret flashing on his face in the twilight. 

“I would have given anything to have had you here with us, Kaladin. Anything.” Lirin met Kaladin’s eyes. “and Tien--” 

His father’s voice became thick with emotion at the utterance of the name. He broke eye contact, choosing a spot in the distance to scrutinize instead. Kaladin realized he had stopped breathing as Lirin collected himself. 

“I like Adolin, Kal, I do. He’s a good man. I just...wish you hadn’t had to go through so much to find him.”

Kaladin wanted to agree with that, but found that he couldn’t.

“--still be asleep if you’re not in there watching him, dear,” Hesina was scolding Adolin playfully as she held the door open for him.

Kaladin scooted down to a lower step to make space for Adolin and his mother, and the four of them took a second to rearrange seats and limbs, crowding on the small front stoop. Adolin made a point of placing Kaladin’s arm over his knee, reaching down to squeeze his shoulder with a warm hand.

Kaladin decided he would have gone through much worse if it would have brought him to this moment.


	5. Part I - Saturday | An Incredible Honor

Kaladin was quiet by Adolin’s side, wearing a look Adolin was well acquainted with by now. It looked like concern, or worry, even anger, but it was usually just...thought. To pass the time and maybe break his husband out of the reverie, Adolin began prying for stories of Kaladin as a boy, and Lirin and Hesina obliged to the best of their ability. But, of course, nearly every tale was wrapped up in memories of Tien. This embarrassed Adolin at first, feeling like a fool for dredging up memories of someone no longer here. 

But the stories seemed to have the opposite effect. Each memory led to another one, and another, and soon all three of them were chiming in with every Tien story they could think of. Adolin already knew certain things about Kaladin’s little brother, like his love of rocks. But tonight he learned that it was Tien who comforted his big brother during highstorms, that Tien’s favorite part of lavis porridge was the burnt stuff on the bottom, that Tien could unblinkingly tell you the birthday of anyone in Hearthstone, that one time he had been so desperate to help Hesina in the kitchen that he had knocked over a whole jar of spices, making the house fragrant for days. 

The time he had tried to smuggle a cremling into the house as a pet, and then lost it. The time a storyteller came through the village and he had memorized the story on the spot, reciting it to himself and anyone else in earshot for days on end until they were all begging him to stop. How fascinated he was when Kaladin started losing teeth, and how excited he was the first time one of his own started to wiggle. 

Stories were cut short, interrupted by more memories, funnier stories, difficult silences. Adolin felt like the witness to a sacred ritual, a conjuring, as if a spell had fallen where they sat, coaxing every last flicker of recollection out of Kaladin and his parents. It was awkward and uncomfortable at first, and Adolin wondered if he should maybe excuse himself, but the way Kaladin’s arm remained wrapped around his knee quickly dismissed the notion. Adolin felt simultaneously filled and exhausted, charged with keeping the short lifetime of Tien in his own heart. Memorizing years of love in a few hours. It was an incredible honor. 

After a certain point, someone noticed that it had gotten very cold out, and the spell was broken. Stiff, shivering and sleepy, they wordlessly trudged inside and went to bed. Adolin was positive the noise of the air mattress inflating would wake Oroden, but it didn’t.


	6. Interlude - Saturday Night or Sunday Morning

Adolin woke up with his butt touching the ground. The air mattress had deflated, creating a depression in the center where he and Kaladin were pooled together in the blankets. It was storming uncomfortable. Kaladin continued to doze though, curled on his side and emitting heat like a human kettle in the dark room. Not ready to get up, but not really tired either, Adolin tucked his knees behind the crook of his husband’s, draping an arm across his chest. 

As Adolin lay wrapped around Kaladin, all the stories about Tien slid across his drowsy mind, like oil swirling on water. He wanted to pull them fully into his consciousness, examine them individually, but it was hard for some reason, maybe because part of him was not exactly pleased to be awake, or maybe because of something else. The rise and fall of Kaladin’s sleeping breaths eventually lulled Adolin back to sleep, holding on just a little bit tighter.


	7. Part II - Sunday Morning | Hard for Some Reason

It was too early. But whenever Oroden woke up was always too early. 

Hesina made herself a single cup of coffee, reserving a full pot for when the rest of the house was awake. Oroden was desperate to wake up Adolin and Kaladin (“Dodo and Kadden,” sweet boy), and it was only with murmured promises of special snacks and books that he was dissuaded from making a racket outside their - well, his - bedroom door. For the time being, at least.

Fortunately, Oroden was in a snuggling mood, eventually contented to sit in Hesina’s lap with a banana and a stack of board books. Hesina found herself nodding off once or twice on the sofa, prompted by Oroden’s persistent little voice asking her to turn the page, or open the flap, or whatever. Her body felt the tiredness more, this time around. It wasn’t necessarily bad, just something she noticed.

Once or twice Hesina’s drowsy mind fooled her into thinking the tiny body cuddled against her was Tien. Maybe it was all the stories they told last night, but the sensation wasn’t anything new, really. She had three sons, sometimes they were interchangeable in her heart, all tied to the same part of it. It was a natural thing.

The book was suddenly impossible to read, until Hesina blinked and fat tears fell. Little Oroden was too small to really notice, thank the Heralds. He accepted the abrupt squeeze from his mother as a matter of course, impatiently pointing at the page and telling her to read what was on it.

Hesina started to regret not making more coffee.

The bedroom door creaked as it opened, and a sigh of relief escaped Hesina’s lips as Lirin stumbled across the hall into the bathroom, bearing the promise of reinforcements. Hesina scraped the tears off her face, leaning over to whisper in the little boy’s ear. 

“Do you want to help me make breakfast?”

******

Kaladin was in the chasms.

It was a variation on a dream he had from time to time: lost in the chasms, stalked by a chasmfiend in a highstorm. Sometimes he was with Shallan, the way it actually happened, but sometimes with Dalinar, or Bridge Four, or even Moash. Never with Adolin, weirdly. 

In the dream, they would be running at a dead sprint as the chasmfiend crashed and snarled behind them, too fast. Too too fast. He would hear the panting of the person or people beside him, never speaking or spoken to, pitch blackness of the chasm sporadically illuminated by lightning. They would just run, run for their lives even though there was nowhere to run  _ to.  _ And then he would hear someone trip, tumble, scramble back up. In the dream, Kaladin always reacted too slow to these aural cues, always ran an extra ten yards before stopping, turning, just in time for the chasmfiend to gain on Shallan or Dalinar or Bridge Four or Moash, horrible pincers swiping out before they even had a chance to scream. Lightning always flashed just in time for Kaladin to watch. 

And then he would wake up, sometimes because he was screaming instead. 

That was always how the dream went. But this time, Tien was there. And it did not go like that. 


	8. Part II - Sunday Morning | Four Sons

Adolin smelled coffee.

Easing his head from where his shoulder crunched into the floor, Adolin gingerly pulled himself to sitting. It was strange to be the first one awake of the two of them, and Kaladin showed no signs of stirring, breath shallow and even, eyes darting under closed lids. Carefully, quietly, Adolin unfolded, stretching out grumpy muscles and joints. There was no mirror in the room (of course there wasn’t, why would a toddler have a mirror), so Adolin blindly ran his hands through his hair a few times, hoping it didn’t look too crazy. Part of him wanted to hide out until Kaladin was awake to join his family, but that fear was silly enough on its face that he set it aside.

The door creaked a little when he opened it, and Adolin immediately heard the rapid pounding of tiny feet headed in his direction, accompanying a refrain of “Dodo! Dodo!”   


Oroden careened around the corner clutching a book with cartoonish drawings of animals on the cover, which he pushed into Adolin’s face. It wasn’t until the squiggly little body was in his arms that Adolin even realized he’d picked the child up.

“Read me? Read me dis?” Oroden pleaded, with a hint of distress in his voice.

“Oroden! He just woke up, baby, give him a minute,” Hesina laughed from the sofa. “He’s mad because I won’t read it to him anymore,” she added confidentially as Adolin traversed the small sitting room with Oroden in his arms, finding a seat beside her, “But I draw the line at 12 times.”

Panic seized Adolin for a second. Was he supposed to read the book? He couldn’t read. Was he supposed to be able to read?

“It’s just glyphs, dear,” Hesina reassured, which, Adolin realized with a twinge of embarrassment, meant the reaction had been plain on his face. “And he mostly wants someone to point at pictures with. But we can wait till  _ after  _ you’ve had some coffee.”

“Do you put things in it? Sugar, or?” Lirin called on cue, already filling a cup. It seemed like Kaladin’s father might believe there was a right answer to that question, which was mildly distressing and also something Adolin couldn’t begin to guess. 

“No thank you si -- No thank you,” Adolin felt his face get hot as he swallowed the barely-formed “sir.” Storms, it was a hard adjustment. Oroden was still in his lap, and to distract from the error Adolin busied himself with a game of peek-a-boo from behind the treasured board book. Storms, the little boy’s laugh was genuinely too much to bear sometimes. 

******

Poor Adolin. He was trying so hard. Hesina couldn’t really understand why someone with such an imposing father was so consistently flustered by her husband, but Adolin definitely was. 

“Kaladin still sleeping?” Lirin asked as he carried Adolin’s coffee to the sitting area, opting to place the cup of scalding liquid on a side table, rather than in arms’ reach of their son.

Adolin nodded, eyeing the coffee, and Hesina reached out to pull Oroden into her own lap, freeing her son-in-law to retrieve the cup. 

Son-in-law.

Right, so four. She had four sons.

Oroden was complaining in her arms, annoyed to have been removed from his playmate. So, though it broke her rule, Hesina picked up the dreaded book and started reading it again, for the thirteenth time.

******

Kaladin ran, but this time he was alone. There was no one to save or lose this time, just his own legs frantically pumping and his own lungs searing with effort. Kaladin ran and ran as the chasmfiend hurtled towards him at impossible speed. It took him a moment to notice a small figure, gently glowing up ahead. 

Tien looked up from the stumpweight he was poking at with a toe, waving cheerfully at Kaladin as if he weren’t being pursued by a literal nightmare. 

“Tien!” Kaladin shouted, a stupid waste of oxygen, but he couldn’t help it. “We have to go! Tien! You have to run!”

In the time it took to gasp the words, Kaladin had come within 100 feet of his little brother, who still made no sign of moving. 

The horrible scrape of carapace on stone made Kaladin grind his teeth. Panic and frustration filled him as he - and the chasmfiend - raced toward Tien. Why didn’t he  _ run? _

“It’s OK,” Tien finally said, and the sound of his small, long-ago voice was almost more painful to Kaladin than the creature’s racket behind him. 

“Look, Kaladin.”

There was a swirl of glowing smoke, and suddenly a boulder stood where Tien had been. A tiny hand reached out of the stone and beckoned to Kaladin, mere feet away at this point. 

“Hurry!”

Kaladin plunged into the boulder, in the dream way that lets us skip over the usual thoughts of “how can this possibly work,” or “I am definitely too big to fit inside this thing”. Small hands braced his impact, and in the darkness Kaladin heard Tien repeat, “It’s OK.”

The deep, quiet grind of chitinous plates made the hairs on Kaladin’s neck stand on end, too dangerously close. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t see anything, but Kaladin understood that he was safe inside this rock with Tien, and that let him relax. He wished he could still see the boy beside him. 

“It’s not gone,” Tien said regretfully, “but you don’t have to run from it right now.” 

After that, Kaladin slept without dreaming. 


	9. Part II - Sunday Morning | Too Big at Times

“Yes, he’s still sleeping,” Adolin responded, sounding too formal in his efforts not to say ‘sir’ again. “I think maybe last night...kind of took it out of him.”

Lirin furrowed his brow in response to that statement, confused. Did he not know how Kaladin felt, being home in a home that bore no mark of Tien? Did either of them? And was it his place to tell them so? 

No. Definitely not.

“Something smells great!” Adolin lurched into a new subject, which was easy because something  _ did  _ smell great, wafting warmly from the oven.

“Hesina made an egg thing,” Lirin explained dismissively, clearly less interested in breakfast than the well-being of his son. “What do you mean? Is he hungover or something?”

“No! No,” Adoin backpedaled. He could have cooked an egg thing on his own face, it felt so hot. And then something just below Adolin’s awareness caved under the scrutiny of his father-in-law, something that said “just tell him anyway”. Adolin had seen this look on Kaladin’s face, and he knew what it meant: Lirin would be irritated by being lied to, and it would be hard-to-impossible to regain the esteem lost by telling that lie, so it wasn’t really worth the gamble. 

“He just...misses Tien. A lot,” Adolin began hesitantly, unable to help noticing that Hesina had paused reading beside him on the couch.

“I think coming back -- he loves to be here, we love coming, THANK you so much for having us,” the torrent of niceties came pouring out before Adolin could stop them, “-- but I think it’s hard in a way that’s kind of exhausting...sometimes. And,” part of Adolin fought hard to steer him away from this line of thought, but it was too late -- “well, I-- you-- sometimes when you lose someone it’s hard, if you can’t talk to anyone who remembers them, or knew them. It can feel like they never existed, but of course she - they -  _ did  _ and you know that, but it’s like this game, this fight to convince yourself that your version of your memory is correct. Sometimes.”

Adolin swallowed, staring into the cup in his hands and wishing it was cool enough to gulp from. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the others.

“So maybe it was kind of a relief, all of you getting to talk together last night about Tien,” Adolin charged on. “Or maybe he  _ did  _ hit the wine too hard, but I guess whatever it was, he needed some extra shuteye?” 

Adolin didn’t like that his eyes widened into a well-practiced mask that said “but I’m just a sweet dumb jock, all this is very confusing to me, did I say something bad?”, but it was an old survival instinct, tough to avoid. A hesitant silence sat heavily in the room.

Something in the kitchen beeped loudly, causing all of them to jump.

“Time to check on the ‘egg thing’,” Hesina announced, chewing on the last two words with a glare at her husband. Easing Oroden off her lap, she ducked behind the small kitchen island where the oven resided. Adolin had never been in a house so compact, with all of its functional bits so close together. The living room was the dining room was the cooking room, which shared a wall with the bathroom. Across a single hallway, the bedrooms were nestled beside each other like eggs in a nest. It made Adolin feel too big at times, but in a way that he liked.

“Dodo, read me dis now?” Oroden had the cardboard pages in his hand and was pushing the book straight into Adolin’s arm. It seemed impossible that Oroden’s tiny voice could sound any sweeter or more endearing, but the little guy was turning out to be full of surprises. 

“Yeah buddy, of course I can.” Adolin made space in his lap for Oroden.

******

Kaladin woke to the sound of a loud kitchen timer and the feeling of Adolin not sleeping next to him. His neck was powerfully stiff from a night unmoving on the hard floor, and it took a bit of coaxing to ease his body out of position. 

Kaladin’s mind still pointed out all the ways the room was wrong, but he found himself considering all the ways his room at home with Adolin was right. Through the door, Kaladin heard the muffled sounds of his parents negotiating the small kitchen, the soothing murmur of Adolin’s voice as he encouraged Oroden. He smelled breakfast. And coffee.

Though the lack of Tien still ached, Kaladin opened the bedroom door to greet the family that was there.

******

The door to Oroden’s bedroom squeaked open. 

“Good morning,” grunted Hesina’s son.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” replied Hesina’s son - the latest one.

“I nee-go POTTY!” interrupted Hesina’s son (the one she had thought would be the latest).

“I’m on it,” offered Hesina’s husband.

“There’s coffee,” said Hesina.

“I had a dream about Tien,” said Kaladin.


	10. Epilogue - Sunday Afternoon

“DODO DON’T GOOOOOO” Oroden writhed and screamed in Lirin’s arms as Adolin wheeled the suitcase out to the car, clearly tortured by the little boy’s cries. While the day before had been all roughhousing and games, today Oroden just wanted to snuggle on the couch, flipping through picture books with Adolin. So engrossed were they that Adolin even stayed in his pajamas  _ through  _ breakfast, which he barely even did at home. 

It had been a good visit. A better visit. 

“I’m glad you could come,” Hesina smiled as Kaladin hugged her goodbye. It still felt strange to reach  _ down  _ for those hugs, and Kaladin didn’t realize how much he’d missed them.

“We’ll come visit again soon, OK buddy?” Adolin consoled Oroden, who was now burrowed into Lirin’s chest, refusing to respond or look up. 

“Thank you again for having us, si- Thanks again, Lirin” Adolin stuck out his hand hesitantly, since the other man had a toddler attached to his chest and it wasn’t clear if he had a hand to shake with. 

“You’re welcome any time.” Lirin shifted the weight in his arms, clasping Adolin’s hand in a way that seemed more...affectionate. 

“Bye Dad,” Kaladin wrapped an arm around his father’s shoulders as Adolin paid his respects to Hesina. “Bye, Denden,” he ruffled the pile of dark hair on his little brother’s head. 

“Will you tell Laral I say hi if you see her?” Kaladin surprised himself with the question. 

“Sure,” Lirin offered, redistributing the petulant bundle that was Oroden yet again. “You better hit the road before the traffic gets bad.”

“I’ll miss you too, Dad,” Kaladin smiled, sharing an amused glance with his mother.

Right on cue, Adolin’s arm was resting across Kaladin’s shoulders. 

“Ready?” said the love of his life. Storms, that smile could never get old. 

“Ready,” Kaladin said.


End file.
